FG admits flaw in Dutch-style health plan

THE Dutch hospital model, of “money follows the patient” which Fine Gael has promised to introduce here, has been criticised as “not effective and not efficient” by a leading academic journal on health policy.

Fine Gael said yesterday that replacing the current system of giving yearly fixed grants to hospitals with a payment per patient would lead to savings of 10% in hospital spending, or €80 million a year by 2014.

But a study in a Health Policy volume published last November said the system had led to a 7.8% increase in hospital spending, or an additional €1.1 billion a year in the first six years after its introduction in the Netherlands.